Lasting alliances
by Lynx Traveller
Summary: A lasting alliance between Cybertron and Masteria is forged. Meanwhile, Nightwings power is finally realised (part of the Journeyman Saga)


Disclaimer: Beast wars and Transformers belong to Hasbro, not me. I thank my good friend Tim Eagles for Masteria, and Lynx, well, I own myself.

Note: this part was actually supposed to be part of the second 'chapter' of The Journeyman Saga, but when I finally started writing the next part, I realised that this just wouldn't fit. I've kept it in anyway, just because the rest wouldn't make much sense without things explained here.

_Anyway, please read and review, the whole Journeyman Saga is the first fic that I've ever put up on FF.net, and no reviews means that I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not._

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It had taken us almost two months to finally reach Masteria; the captain didn't want to push the ship too hard in case it shook itself apart.

We had put into Masteria for repairs, and the crew was on shore-leave until the repairs were complete.

Last time that we had been this way, we hadn't made planet-fall; we had only seen the orbital facility.

I'd asked Lynx about why no visitors were permitted down to the surface, he'd replied that the orbital facility was designed to cater for any visitors, and indeed any off-world interaction between Masteria and any of it's trade partners. Everything available on the surface was easily found on the space-station, and so there wasn't really any reason for visitors to go planet-side, we could have if we'd wanted to, it would have just been unconventional.

The last few months had been hard on me; for some reason, my body was constantly wracked with waves of pain, it was nothing that the medics could figure out, or that the CR chambers could help with. Rift-wing had been by my side the whole time that I'd taken to recover, and whilst I still wasn't fully my old self, I was certainly a lot better.

During my time in the infirmary, I'd remembered something that Optimus Prime had said to Ironhide shortly after they had arrived on Earth; "Remember hot-shot, there's a fine line between being a hero, and being a memory." I guess that it had kind of stuck in my mind after that.

I was shaken out of my musings when I realised that I'd just been asked a question.

"Hmmm?"

Lynx looked at me quizzically, like he'd guessed what I'd been thinking.

This time however, we had been permitted to the surface without a fuss, since Masterian Naval Yards had their main shipbuilding facilities on the surface.

"I said, do you want to see how the _Journeyman is going?" _

"Huh, oh yeah, alright."

Lynx had been giving me a tour of the facility. I still couldn't get over the size of the place! I felt that the entire Academy could be put in here, with room to spare. I'd asked Lynx why they need a facility this size, he'd replied that it was simply to cater for any future needs. Currently though, it was being used to build thousands of craft. Everything from fighters to big bulk-transports were under construction.

Their designs were incredible! Everything it seemed, is made from an organic compound, aptly called 'synth-metal'. As far as we could tell, it was a form of algae, but it had the properties of Tritanium armour-plast. At Lynx' insistence, I'd rammed my energon blade through a test piece; not only had it taken all my strength, but it sealed up almost as soon as the blade was withdrawn.

Apparently, it was grown in a culture, before patches were applied to the sub-frames of the ships. The synth-metal grew together to form a perfect skinning for the ships. It apparently had a form of memory; if it was damaged, it could repair itself back to almost exactly like it was before it was damaged.

The _Journeyman. looked almost comical; it had patches of the green synth-metal all over it; it looked like it had crashed into a pond, and had emerged covered in splotches of algae._

I laughed inwardly; if the situation was any different, the whole crew would be doing their best to try and remove such a strange parasitic growth.

Apparently, the strength obtained was exponential to the growing times; it was possible to speed it up using energy fields, but the longer that it took to grow, the stronger it was. Many of the Masterians Capital ships took over a year to skin. The _Journeyman was scheduled to be here for at least two months; it's covering would be comparatively weak, but it would still be at least a 300% increase over the original duraplast. We could be here longer, but the captain felt that any longer than two months would put us too far behind schedule; we still had a lot of exploring to do._

If their building material was something to awe over, then their designs simply blew us away.

Their main fighter, of which the naval yards were busily churning out at a great rate, were called 'Satyrs'. They were a good six meters long, and looked incredibly purposeful. Toward the rear of their long sensor-filled nose were a pair of crescent shaped wings, which pointed forwards. At the tip of the crescent was a trident arrangement which held the main armament. This usually consisted of four proton cannons, and usually two ion cannons. Of course, it was entirely up to the pilot's personal preference; I'd seen several decked out with six ion cannons, and Lynx' ship was specially fitted with a pair of experimental phase cannons.

Behind the teardrop cockpit each ship was fitted with a powered turret, which had spaces for four weapons of the gunners choice.

The gunners themselves were remarkable; each fighter crew consisted of a Masterian pilot, and an android gunner.

The androids were completely indistinguishable from their creators; I'd been here for almost two weeks now, and I still couldn't tell them apart. They were at least as intelligent as their creators, and it would have been an insult to call their intelligence 'artificial'.

We hadn't toured the facility where they were manufactured yet, but I could tell that we were in for a real treat; the ships engineers were just writhing with anticipation; they were clearly several notches up on the evolutionary scale than Cybertronians, and I could tell that the techs were eager to see just how different they were.

Lynx' gunner walked over from where she had been supervising the outfitting of several upgrades to the _Journeyman. On closer examination, we had discovered that several of the weapons circuits were heavily energy-scored, and the main shield generator was almost completely burnt out; I'd been shocked when we first opened the maintenance hatch at just how black with carbon the emitter and indeed the whole inside of the radome had been._

Lynx spoke first. "So, what's the status?"

"Oh, about three days more progressed than the last time you asked." 

I hadn't known Zero that long, but I learned early in the peace that she had a mischievous streak.

Unlike the others, Zero was easily recognisable as being synthetic; rather than the finely detailed and coloured synth-flesh/fur that covered others, she only it had it around her face.

The rest of her body, from the top of the neck down to the soles of her feet were covered in a chromatic red synth-metal, with some sort of black flexible material at the joints. The effect was as though she was wearing red armour, which was the exact effect Lynx had been aiming for; chromatic red was the colour of the ceremonial armour of High-court guards. Other than the fact that her face was that of a Masterian, and that she couldn't transform, she could easily have blended in back home without anyone giving her a second glance.

"Heh, but seriously"

"I was being serious." she smiled mischievously, "Oh, you wanted a report? Well, the weapons circuits have had to be replaced right back up to the targeting computer. Whatever sort of miss-fire caused that amount of damage, I'm surprised that the computers weren't fried as well."

"As to the shield emitters; I doubt that they would have held for any more than a few more shots. As it was, they were only still operational around the bridge area, that's why the rest of the ships skin was so badly damaged.  We've replaced the entire unit with a D-class shield generator; it shouldn't burn out any time soon."

Just then, several of the other crewmembers walked past; I still couldn't get over how different the synth-metal made them look; several of the other seeker wings had volunteered for an 'upgrade'. None of my wing felt it was necessary, and so we'd all opted not to.

"Well, I'd better get back to work, otherwise those construction drones will be having another lunch break."

Lynx laughed and nodded, before turning to me, "That reminds me, it is nearly lunch time, you want to head over and get a bite to eat?" 

The "_harms way" bar and grill. was pretty similar to most bars that we'd gone to, but with the characteristic differences preferred by different species that made each planet's bars unique._

The rest of the gang was already there, Krshyyyk and Brigand were each trying to speak the others language, and both were almost hysterical, Banshee had his usual disdainful look on his face, and was polishing his gunblade. Rift-wing was just resting in the pod-shaped chair she was sitting in.

Mirage let out a happy yelp and tried to jump into my arms.

The waiter came over and took our order; I wasn't overly hungry, but Brigand decided to make the usual pig of himself.

"What is it with you and food? It's not like you actually need it?"

"I don't care, I'll probably never to come back here after we leave, and I don't want to waste the opportunity to sample the wares."

"Fair enough."

Suddenly, my left arm began to feel tingly, before I could even call out it had turned into a burning, stabbing sensation; I felt as if my whole arm was on fire!

Rift-wing rushed to my side as the pain began to travel down my back; I was doubled up on the floor in agony as the others crowded around anxiously.

After what seemed like an eternity, the pain finally backed off, only to leave a horrible cramping sensation.

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I think so."

Man, this was embarrassing; a warrior reduced to rolling around on the floor whilst the audience looks on.

"I wonder what causes it?"

"Maybe the Pit wants him back."

Rift-wing hit him hard enough to knock him over the table. Brigand looked like he wanted to be next in line.

Lynx spoke up, "That isn't really as stupid as it sounds; the rite that I used to bring you back hasn't been used in many centuries; no-one's been powerful enough to pull it off, even I almost wasn't able to, but I do vaguely remember hearing of side-effects; crippling pain, temporary blindness, partial paralysis, even in some cases they even return to the other side. It's almost as if the soul isn't willing to accept that it isn't still dead. One thing that is known though is that the level of the side-effects seems to be proportional to the amount of effort that the one performing the rite expends, I nearly killed myself, but I guess that even I wasn't quite strong enough."

"You did all you could, any more and we'd have had _two less crew."_

Rift-wing looked over from glaring at Banshee, "Is there a cure?"

"I'm not sure, but I'd like to try something, I have a theory that I'd like to try out."

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"What is this place?"

"A very old and sacred place. You remember me telling you that our power is related to the planet's own energy fields?" I nodded assent, "well, there are certain crystals that seem to have a certain relationship with the energy, it isn't quite known how, but they seem to amplify it; most Masterians are given a piece of 'bonding crystal' at birth. There are tales that if the bonging crystal is ever lost, so is a part of the owners own life, I'm not sure that I believe that, but I do know that my own crystal certainly helps me to concentrate and generally improve my own abilities when I focus on it. Anyway, the place that we are going to is a naturally formed cavern full of the crystal. I've had many visions whilst meditating inside."

"Anyway, we're here."

We stood at the opening of what appeared to be nothing more than a shadow on the side of the rock face; we'd been flying for a good hour to get to a nearby plateau, and then hiked the rest of the way through a rocky wasteland. The pain from this morning was finally beginning to subside.

Despite the evidence that I'd seen so far, I was still at some level a bit sceptical of this 'power' that they seemed to have. The cave looked on the outside like nothing more than a fissure in the rock; I had to stoop down just to enter it.

On the inside however, was a completely different matter. I had never seen anything like it; the Crystal appeared to be a dull amber colour from the samples that I'd seen during my short stay, and even from within the cave I could see a certain tawny tint to it, but that was where the similarities ended.

The whole cavern was lit from within by a stunning azure glow; I'd wondered why Lynx hadn't brought any glow-rods, and now I knew.

This 'magic' that they spoke of wasn't just some mystical force that was mostly just rumours and a few tricks that I'd thought that it was in the first place; it was solid, tangible. I felt it coursing through me; a weird sensation, almost like water, or a gentle breeze.

I was speechless for a long while, as was Lynx, even though he'd seen it all before.

"I had no idea…"

"I know, I could sense your doubt, even though it was at such a deep level that even you couldn't entirely grasp it."

"Now what?"

Lynx pointed to a darker hued area; at first I'd thought it just a part of the cave that wasn't as charged, but then I realised that it was actually a tunnel; the way that the walls were lit from within meant that there were no shadows to define the outline of the place.

"We go deeper, these caves extend for many miles, possibly even to the core, but no one's ever gone the full distance."

"Why not?"

"You'll see."

We walked on for what seemed like hours, the walls intensified both in colour and brightness the deeper we went.

The feeling of the magic coursing through and around me grew oppressive; it was almost claustrophobic, it felt like I was being electrocuted, even though my internal computer couldn't even detect any energy fields.

 The deeper we went, the stronger the feeling got. Even still though, it seemed to have a healing effect on my arm, I couldn't feel anything of the pain anymore.

I looked over at Lynx, he was still progressing, but I could see that even he was beginning to feel like he was being crushed from an invisible force.

"Let's stop here, I think that we've gone deep enough."

I nodded in ascent and joined him in sitting next to an outcrop.

"Oppressive, isn't it?"

Lynx nodded, "This at least confirms my suspicions to some degree; I was worried that you wouldn't be able to feel it, but you must have at least some ability simply to get this far below the surface."

"Just how deep are we?"

"It's impossible to tell, since no sensors can make it this deep, but I estimate about three miles below the surface."

I blinked, "three miles? I would have thought that we'd only gone a few meters under."  
"It's the energy field; it stuffs up your senses of balance, the floor in some parts its actually reasonably steep, this is one of the more level places."

I looked around me, before idly trying to break off a fragment of crystal, it wouldn't even crack.

"Rhyolite is one of the hardest crystal structures that we've found; a few adepts have managed to magically shape it, but not very well.

"So, now what?"

"Well, if my suspicions are indeed correct, then all we have to do now is relax."

"Relax?" 

"It seems hard at first with the crushing feeling, but if you let yourself into a deep meditative trance and not fight it, then you should get some results."

"What do you mean by 'results?' "

"I'm not entirely sure, but we'll know when it happens."

I tried shutting the feeling out and simply relaxing, but it was impossible; after a while I just began to adjust to its presence, and gradually began not to notice it.

I looked over at Lynx, he was in a deep meditative trance, I finally managed the same.

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I was floating in space, although there were no stars, just a sense of anticipation; something was going to happen.

From this unique vantage point, I witnessed something that only the theorists had hypothesised; the birth of the universe.

Everything was in massive fast-forward; simple hydrogen molecules forming, growing together to finally collapse under their own mass and begin a fusion reaction; the birth of the first stars. Heavier molecules formed, and got caught in the grav-wells of the stars, to eventually solidify and form planets.

Billions of years flashed past in an instant, Races came and died out, planets were formed and created, stars expended their fuel and condensed down into black-holes, time slowed, and finally focused on the present.

It was hard to explain what happened next; the images were almost as though they were my own thoughts; as though I was _thinking what I was being shown. _

I saw, or rather 'perceived' a sense of the energy speaking to me; I couldn't hear what it was saying, but I could still understand what it meant.

The final image was one of something forming at my feet.

Instantly it seemed, I was back to consciousness. I looked over at where Lynx was sitting; the expectant look in his face told me that he already knew.

I looked down at my feet, there was a tiny shard of crystal, about an inch long, perfectly formed with no visible grain, it glowed a bright azure for a second, before coming clear, then finally taking on a tawny hue.

"Looks as though my thoughts were correct; it is rare that the magic actually presents itself, it's usually just a feeling, but it certainly looks as though you have some ability."

"Where'd it come from?"

"I have absolutely no idea, this is the first time ever that an outsider has been accepted, even in our own synthetics any ability is incredibly rare; almost 1 in five-million, it always seems to be a random occurrence, we can find nothing different from the others about them. It's possible that your being chosen could have any number of reasons; it could be something left over from the Therans, or even some latent ability that you've always had; you said that the Therans said that you began to see your own visions."

"There is a theory back home that if a spark touches the Matrix, and then is allowed to come back, that it has some abilities; it's the theory behind why the seers have powers; they are actually born-again sparks of warriors who fought and died honourably enough to be given a second chance."

"That could have some bearing on it; Masterians who are very near death and are revived tend to have heightened abilities, or it could just be a residual effect from my magically bringing you back."

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"So, how'd it go?"  
"Lynx seems to think that it went well, but then I wouldn't know."

"We were just going to..."

Rift-wind stopped, she was staring at the inside of my right shoulder wing.

I looked over; in this light, my tattoo was really visible.

To wear the Decepticon mark in today's society was a symbol of defiance of the government; it meant that you wouldn't accept the way that things were, that you clung to the old traditions. But I didn't see it like that; before Leige Maximo was influenced by Unicron, and before he created Megatron, Shockwave and Soundwave, the three original 'evil' Decepticons, the faction was a race of warriors; battle hardened and with a warriors honour code. That was why I had gotten the laser-etched tattoo; as a sign of respect to my warrior heritage. I'd known at the time that it would probably cause problems, and so I'd had it done it black; a black tattoo on black paint meant that it was rarely visible, and so very few actually knew about it.

I explained to Rift-wing why I wore the Decepticon insignia, and she seemed sort of convinced, but at times she was really hard to read.

"Anyway, we were just about to tour the capital, you wanna come?"  
"Uh, sure."

"Well, we're just about ready to leave, the repairs will be finished very soon."

"Yes captain."

The others turned to leave, Lynx, Krshyyyk and myself stayed. 

"Something you boys want?"

Lynx stepped forward, although he hadn't actually explained his plan to me, I had sort of figured out what he intended, as had Krshyyyk.

"Captain, during my short stay aboard the _Journeyman, I've learnt many things about Cybertron, but there's still a lot that I haven't learnt. I realise that our short stay here has had an influence on both your people and mine alike, and in that respect I would like to continue with you on the mission, to act as a diplomat for my people when we finally reach Cybertron."_

"Lynx, I'd love for you to return with us. Like you said, we've learnt a lot from each other in your short stay with us. But once we return to Cybertron, there's little chance of another mission planned this far out for a fair while. There would be little chance of you returning home."

"Well, if transport is your only concern, then it's easily fixed; if you'll grant me cargo space to bring my fighter along, then I can supply my own transport."

"How?"

"My ship is fitted with a later model of the same hyper-jump engines that were fitted to the _Evrantéé, in fact, most of our capital ships are; it allows almost simultaneous travel between two points anywhere in the galaxy. As a token of an alliance between our people, I'm sure we could share the technology."_

"Well in that case, all have to say is 'welcome aboard'."

"Thanks, I hope that we can forge a lasting friendship between Cybertron and Masteria."

"I'm sure that we will."

Krshyyyk spoke up, "Under the circumstances, I would also like to express my wishes to become an envoy of my people."

"It won't be too big a problem for me to take him back when I leave."

"Well, in that case you're both welcome to join us for the rest of this mission, just don't eat too much."

"Nah, that's Brigands job."

We all smiled at that.  


End file.
